A Ball State student has decided he wants to do his part in the national effort to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina by setting up a booth in the Atrium to collect donations.Sophomore Everett Keys will man a donation booth from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. today, Thursday and Friday to gather contributions for the American Red Cross relief effort.“I was really bothered about the whole hurricane situation,” he said. “I decided to just get out and do something about it.”
Keys said he knows a lot of people around campus and thinks he could easily get many of his friends to donate, if no one else does.
“I’m sure every little bit helps,” he said.
His goal is to get at the least $1,000, but he hopes to get more than that.
“As you grow up, you tend to see things a little differently. Last year, I probably wouldn’t have given much thought to [the hurricane],” Keys said.
Keys called several people to get someone to help him man the booth but had no luck, he said,
“I’m just surprised about the amount of people who sit there and say they care but won’t get up and do anything about it,” he said. “I don’t mind sitting by myself. There’s been so many things in my life that I said I wanted to do and then just sat back and didn’t. ... It’s just kind of to prove something to myself.”
He said he encourages students to give up a little bit of their partying and drinking money to help in the relief effort.
“People would really be surprised how much they get out of self-sacrifice and helping other people,” Keys said. “People should really sit down and think and try to put themselves in someone else’s shoes ... you’d be surprised at the number of people on campus who don’t have any idea about the hurricane at all.”
The American Red Cross is preparing to send the most resources for a single natural disaster that it’s ever mobilized, and Muncie resident Sissy Coffin flew down to Houston, Texas, on Monday morning to be a disaster volunteer.
She is the only volunteer from the local Hoosier Heartland Chapter of the Red Cross to fly down, and she will spend about three weeks helping the recovery effort.
“They called for volunteers ... so I packed my bags and got my flight for 6 a.m.,” she said Monday.
Coffin said she will be mainly helping with the sheltering and feeding aspects of the relief effort, which includes working in kitchens preparing food, taking food to people and assisting people in finding temporary housing.
Coffin has worked on other disaster relief efforts, including the efforts for Hurricane Charlie and the Muncie ice storm last year.
“Each and every disaster is different and unique in its own way,” she said.
Coffin said she joined relief efforts to help people, and “The best way to make a difference was to get involved in the Red Cross.” Coffin’s favorite part of helping is being “the person that hands them that plate of food.”
Brian Fern, director of community support for the Hoosier Heartland Chapter of the American Red Cross, said the Red Cross expects the relief effort to last several months.
“Right now, we are trying to raise money to help with the relief effort. We’re projecting this is going to be a fairly costly relief effort,” he said. “We’re projecting we’re probably going to serve over 16 million meals during this relief effort.”
Volunteers are trained in basic and specialized classes including mass care, sheltering individuals, damage assessment and more.
“The thing that we need the most right now is monetary donations to help speed relief to the area,” Fern said.
He said it was easier to distribute money to the areas in need than have people donate items that would need to be sorted, shipped and passed out.
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